 Drawing 10·30·2018, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I am feeling very good about my work. It is making sense. My art is on a path to I do not know where. Like Joseph Campbell, I believe if you know your path it is NOT your path.
 "Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 20), oil on canvas, 63x66 inches {"What might have been is an abstraction; Remaining a perpetual possibility; Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory." -T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"} "What might have been is an abstraction; Remaining a perpetual possibility; Only in a world of speculation what might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present." This painting is Burnt Norton, in its speculation and in its presence. Yesterday's entire studio session was used to enhance Burnt Norton, getting it ever-so-close to its perpetual possibility. I must declare (as a visual artist): The more one knows the more one sees the more one's discipline must be used to clarify one's knowledge in a visual product.
 "Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 19), oil on canvas, 63x66 inches {"What might have been is an abstraction; Remaining a perpetual possibility; Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory." -T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"}  Drawing 10·27·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Jumping into a pit of obstacles, hazards and rewards, is the means to success in sport and in art-making. I found I can act well when challenged by multiple possibilities, some leading to success, some leading to failure. This is problem solving. This is the activity of art-making. This is the activity of sport. Art is engineering and athletics combined. It is physical, and it is mental. Yesterday I leaped into a drawing. For a while I felt lost. I had created many possibilities. For a while it felt confusing and chaotic. There were moments when I thought it best to abandon the drawing. I did not. I was rewarded. I found order within the chaos I had launched. This success by challenge is a great thing; it brings vitality. If the result is success, then trust in one's abilities are bolstered. More challenge will follow. It is a practice I will continue.
Burnt Norton is now very close to complete. The tweak is on! Burnt Norton shall now be completed with minor alterations in color, line, and form.  "Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 18), oil on canvas, 63x66 inches {"What might have been is an abstraction; Remaining a perpetual possibility; Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory." -T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"} This painting is the opposite of everything useless and tedious and repetitive, which is much of the news in our world today. When reading the news I ask myself, "Where is all this falderal going?" Well, it is not going where this painting, Burnt Norton, is going. This is a successful painting; it is becoming more successful with every alteration I make. Burnt Norton, as seen here in reproduction, needs one last tweak. Oh, oh! This is the happiness of being an artist; being in control of one's own creations!
 "Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 17), oil on canvas, 63x66 inches {"What might have been is an abstraction; Remaining a perpetual possibility; Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory." -T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"}  Drawing 10·24·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Yesterday's drawing was fluidity fulfilled — it came easily (which is not necessarily a good thing). That drawing is clogged with detail. Its surfaces are animated with energetic marks. Its forms fell from notions past and present. So what's not to love? When I view it I feel insecure. This drawing is either ahead of my comprehension or it is limited by fixed knowledge tucked away in memory; I am unsure. My confusion with its origin is the root of my insecurity. Best for me to paint today. On my painting wall I have two paintings in process. Burnt Norton is in its 17th state, and Chaos, Stillness & Prayer is in state 1. At this moment, Chaos, Stillness & Prayer is aptly named, since my work on it today will be from a state of emotional insecurity.
 Drawing 10·23·2018, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches My knowledge is converging into my artistic personality. My artistic personality is a revelation of myself. I do not want my art to be simple manifestation of id. I want it to measure self-discovery deeper than instinct, deeper than my primary intellectual and emotional processes. This is about me finding the reason I am; the reason I exist; the reason my actions have meaning beyond action itself. I know my being has importance. Everyone has importance. Me, the artist, wants to manifest my reason to live through visual imagery. The game I play is this: I actively reveal myself to myself; I make the effort to communicate that revelation to my viewers. We have commonness in self-worth. I am hoping my art allows us to be together, to simultaneously be uplifted by self-glorification. Our existence has value; it has significance because it is consequential.
Yesterday's drawing is immensely important to me. It gathers accumulated knowledge through deep-rooted conversation with myself. I did this in the act of making it. It is simultaneously the convergence of knowledge and the creation of new knowing. This is the process I define as art-making. Given my discussion today I believe I have made a larger discovery. The current art market revels in found images, i.e., images made by Banksy, Jeff Koons, and (from the the past) Andy Warhol. My art is vastly different in concept; different from those successfully marketed artists. It is not about simple images defined by our cultural camaraderie. It is about images that are layered with nuance of selfness.  Drawing 10·21·2018, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I got a little derailed by a health scare last week. It wasn't true and I am as good as ever. Mortality is very scary. So is underperformance. I want to be the best I can be. This drawing is a good one; made while I was scared. Focusing on art clarifies; it reveals truth. The most basic truth is Now is a joyous gift to celebrate. Celebration is the action of seeking truth; art-making is analogous to truth-making. The truth is found in the doing, since truthfulness is known by the doer as it is done. Art-making is weeding out truth by the act of acceptance and rejection. In other words, making art is a discipline that is the practice of truth-making, which is practicing truthfulness, and practicing truthfulness is universally helpful to every encounter by a living spirit. Practicing truthfulness instructs the living spirit on how to accurately recognize truth, to live truth, to communicate truth. Finally, accepting my mortality has focussed me; I accept my task as I know it — seeking truth by making art.
For a long time I have been playing with the means to accurate reproduction here on the web. I am happy with today's reproduction of yesterday's drawing. That's a first!  Drawing 10·18·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  "Chaos, Stillness & Prayer" (2018 No.9, state 1), oil on canvas, 54x36 inches {"Art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm.... an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction." -Saul Bellow, "Writers at Work: Third Series", 1967} Making art, making life, is full of distractions; there is a lot of chaos. Ordering emotions, placing them in front of myself, rooting them out despite the distractions, separating truth, attempting to clarify truth by making images; this is my job. I bring order to my living by giving attention to the stuff I can order. It is understanding I seek. I will not allow the distractions of chaos to stop me from my effort to make sense of this state of being.
Yesterday was a good day. I did follow my need to use visual motion to exude personal emotion. I did this in a drawing, I followed it with a new painting, Chaos, Stillness & Prayer.  Drawing 10·17·2018, pencil n paper, 16x20 inches I did prepare a new canvas for a new painting. It is ready to go, and I am too! The drawings from the last two days tell me this: these drawings illustrate a direction I do NOT want to go. They are too static. Each develops compositionally around a firm set of forms. These forms give spatial direction, and solidity, but movement is restricted. I enjoy loop-da-looping within a rectangular piece of paper or canvas. Yesterday's drawing does drive the viewer from lower right to upper left, but then what? It is play, but in a static space. This is dull. It could be nice for a different kind of artist. Even Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) made static compositions at the bringing of his mature period (around 1920). Mondrian was the most staid and sober of artists, yet ultimately his static use of bars and colors transformed to images of great animation. I show you an early Mondrian (1921), and a late one (1944); see both below this post.  Piet Mondrian, "Tableau I", oil on canvas, 1921  Piet Mondrian, "Victory Boogie Woogie", oil on canvas, 1944  Drawing 10·16·2016, pencil on paper, 20x16inches Yesterday I was surprised at how much I had to work to make this drawing work. It did not come easy. I wondered, "Why?" I realized I had not made a drawing for several days. I had been working exclusively on the painting Burnt Norton. Fresh eyes I had, or was it rust? Was there crustiness in my brain because I had not recently thought about approaching a new work of art from scratch to finish, all in one session? Whatever it was, this one came hard. Today I think me ready for a new painting. This drawing, I believe, is an idea bounced about as possible progenitor to a new painting. However, I am not fully happy with this drawing. Is it too complex?
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November 2024
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